- Armed Americans fight back: Inside 2025’s most gripping self-defense shootings across the US
Source: Fox News
“Throughout 2025, many instances of Americans exercising their right to bear arms to protect themselves, their families and their property made headlines across the country. As of Dec. 23, the U.S. had seen 14,249 gun-related deaths and 25,606 injuries since the start of the year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Of those instances, 1,119 shootings were deemed to be in self-defense, with many cases going unprosecuted due to various laws throughout the country permitting the use of guns in life-threatening situations.” [editor’s note: And that doesn’t count the times when merely having, or being known to have, a gun prevented or put a stop to a “life-threatening situation – TLK] (12/30/25)
- Eurostar Cancels Trains After Power Failure in Channel Tunnel
Source: New York Times
“Eurostar, the high-speed train service connecting Britain and continental Europe, said all of its trains were canceled until further notice after a major power failure inside the Channel Tunnel, disrupting plans for thousands of people during one of the busiest travel weeks of the year. The disruption, caused by a fault in the overhead power supply and the subsequent breakdown of a train within the 31-mile tunnel, left passengers stranded for hours.” (12/30/25)
- Russia’s nuclear-capable Oreshnik missiles have entered active service, Moscow says
Source: ABC News
“Russia’s nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile system has entered active service, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Tuesday, as negotiators continue to search for a breakthrough in peace talks to end Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Troops held a brief ceremony to mark the occasion in neighboring Belarus where the missiles have been deployed, the ministry said. It did not say how many missiles had been deployed or give any other details. … Putin has praised the Oreshnik’s capabilities, saying that its multiple warheads, which plunge toward a target at speeds up to Mach 10, are immune to being intercepted.” (12/30/25)
- Israeli President Calls BS on Trump’s Pardon Claim
Source: The Daily Beast
“Israel’s president has pushed back on Donald Trump’s claim that the two had spoken and that a pardon for Benjamin Netanyahu was ‘on its way.’ Isaac Herzog, 65, disputed what Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago while beside Netanyahu, who is accused of fraud, breach of trust, and bribery — charges which he denies. … ‘There has not been a conversation between President Herzog and President Trump since the pardon request was submitted,’ his office said, according to CNN. Rather, Herzog’s office said he had spoken to a Trump aide and gave ‘an explanation’ about ‘the stage of the process in which the request currently stands.’ … In June, the president called for either the cancellation of the trial or a pardon for his ally, ‘who has done so much for the State’ during the Israel-Iran conflict.” (12/29/25)
- CA: Regime gives up on federal high-speed rail funding
Source: Politico
“California has ended a lawsuit challenging the termination of $4 billion in federal grants for its controversial high-speed rail project, ceding its claim to federal funding that the Trump administration has repeatedly tried to withdraw. … The California High-Speed Rail Authority said in a statement that the agency has decided to cut ties with the Trump administration, which has also threatened other pots of federal funding tied to the planned rail line connecting Los Angeles to the Bay Area. ‘This action reflects the state’s assessment that the federal government is not a reliable, constructive, or trustworthy partner in advancing high-speed rail in California,’ the statement said.” (12/29/25)
- Moody’s Cuts Budapest’s Rating to Junk Due to Row With National Regime
Source: US News & World Report
“Ratings agency Moody’s has downgraded Budapest’s credit rating to Ba1 from Baa3 and placed it on review for a further reduction, citing its weak liquidity and a financial dispute with Viktor Orban’s national government. The downgrade comes at a delicate time for Budapest, which is run by the liberal mayor Gergely Karacsony, as nationalist Prime Minister Orban will likely face parliamentary elections in April. The centre-right opposition Tisza party is leading most polls. … ‘Ongoing legal disputes over the tax amount, which exceeds the funding received from the central government, add system instability and jeopardize the budgeting process and cash balances,’ Moody’s said, adding the ratings also reflected the partial freezing of European Union funds to Hungary.” (12/30/25)
- Are We Killing “Drug Traffickers” or Just Expanding Government Power?
Source: Chasing Liberty
by Jeff Charles“The Trump administration’s military campaign against alleged drug-trafficking vessels reads like a government overreach textbook — complete with body counts, zero transparency, and the tired rhetorical fig leaf that always accompanies expanded executive power: national security. … The administration has never produced an iota of proof that these boats are actually carrying drugs. Not once. In fact, when PolitiFact asked the White House for proof that Venezuela was exporting drugs to America or that the targeted vessels contained narcotics, the administration answered with a chorus of crickets. If the case is so clear-cut, why is the American public not allowed to see a shred of proof?” (12/30/25)
https://www.libertychasers.com/p/trumps-airstrikes-on-venezuela-have
- Rich People Won’t Just Sit Still While You Tax Them
Source: The Daily Economy
by Andrew Wilford“As New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani prepares to take office, tax-happy progressive groups are eager to let you know that the idea that rich people move because of taxes is all a big myth. There are no consequences to raising taxes on rich people, they argue, because rich people will be rich no matter what. It’s a pretty picture, and a convenient one for those who have never met anything economically productive that they didn’t want to tax. The only problem is that the data proves it just isn’t true.” (12/30/25)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/rich-people-wont-just-sit-still-while-you-tax-them/
- Five hopeful signs college students are seeking truth once more
Source: Fox News
by Dr. Kent Ingle“It would be easy to end this year discouraged. From campus unrest to ideological extremes at some of the most prestigious universities in America, 2025 gave us more than enough to lament. But as a university president, and as we approach this season of Christmas, a time marked by reflection, renewal and hope, I believe the full story of higher education this year was not just about collapse. It was also about conviction. This was a year when students spoke up. Parents got involved. Christian leaders stayed the course. And across the country, signs of renewal began to take shape. Not everywhere. Not perfectly. But undeniably. As I reflect on this year in higher education, I believe these five moments signal that a meaningful shift is already underway.” (12/29/25)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/five-hopeful-signs-college-students-seeking-truth-once-more
- Somebody Needs to Tell Trump Everybody Is Laughing at Him
Source: The Bulwark
by Mona Charen“Dear President Trump, Of all the wrong ideas you hold in your heart — that tariffs are paid by foreigners, that good looks are the chief credential for cabinet offices, that the 2020 election was rigged, that allies are bloodsuckers we’d be better off without — perhaps the most gobsmacking is your cherished notion that people respect you when they kiss your ass. Sorry, that’s not true. They despise you on two levels. On the first level, because you’ve managed to get elected president, you do have leverage that nearly everyone must grapple with in some fashion. … The second level of contempt arises from the knowledge — recognized by the whole world, Mr. Trump, except you — that your extravagant need for attention and praise is evidence of your emotional stuntedness.” (12/30/25)
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/somebody-needs-to-tell-trump-everybody-laughing-at-him
- Christmas Cruise Missiles: Nigeria’s Complex War and America’s Misguided Strike
Source: Antiwar.com
by Alan Mosley“On Christmas Day 2025, President Donald Trump declared that the United States had launched a salvo of Tomahawk missiles against the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) in northwest Nigeria. In a Truth Social message from his Mar‑a‑Lago club, he boasted that ‘ISIS terrorist scum’ were being bombed for ‘slaughtering Christians’ …. Trump’s message played to a familiar trope in American politics that persecuted Christians abroad must be rescued by U.S. firepower. This narrative, however, ignores the realities of the Sahel. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) notes that although Boko Haram and its ISWAP offshoot are vicious toward Christians, most of their victims are Muslims because the insurgency takes place largely in Nigeria’s predominantly Muslim north. Attacks on mosques have become more common than attacks on churches since 2015.” (12/30/25)
- Zohran Mamdani Didn’t Run on “Affordability.” He Ran Against Prices.
Source: Reason
by Peter Suderman“Mamdani’s promise was that, as mayor, he would defeat high prices. But many of Mamdani’s signature ideas are variations on price controls. Take a deeper look at his policies, and it becomes clear that he ran against prices, period. It’s not surprising that a self-declared socialist would make price controls a central part of his economic program. The conceit at the heart of socialism is that when it comes to the economy, politicians and bureaucrats know best. But prices, when they are allowed to work, are signals that provide decentralized information. Price controls don’t solve economic problems; they disguise them, making it harder to know what’s happening. Prices are messages, and Mamdani wants to shoot the messenger.” (for publication 2/26)
https://reason.com/2025/12/30/zohran-mamdanis-prices-crises/
- From Powell to Venezuela: The High Cost of Evidence-Free Escalation
Source: Common Dreams
by Angel Gomez“In the annals of modern international relations, few moments carry as heavy a legacy as the speech given by US Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003. With solemn authority, Powell presented what he called ‘facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence’ regarding Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The world watched. The Security Council listened. The invasion of Iraq soon followed. Yet nearly every core assertion Powell made that day collapsed under post-war scrutiny. Iraq, it turned out, had no active WMD program. The biological labs, the chemical weapons, the nuclear revival – none existed. The damage, however, had been done: hundreds of thousands of lives lost, regional instability that persists two decades later, and a critical blow to the credibility of the international system.” (12/29/25)
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/iraq-venezuela-evidence
- The Politics of Civility and Tact
Source: Law & Liberty
by Ferenc Hörcher“Niccolo Machiavelli and Carl Schmitt are most often regarded as the two crucial modern authors to whom we can attribute our strong concept of the political. Both thinkers present politics as an agonistic struggle for power, and even in certain cases an irreconcilable antagonism between factions. No doubt, modern competitive democracy is itself based on a powerful concept of conflict and rivalry. This is the precondition for claiming that voters will receive well-defined alternative visions of how to handle common affairs, to have real choices. However, it is difficult for everyday thinking to understand why conflict would be necessary and unmanageable in the conduct of the affairs of the political community.” (12/30/25)
- The Worst of Both Worlds for Campus Free Speech
Source: The Dispatch
by Greg Lukianoff“For most of my career, the biggest threat to free speech on campus came from inside higher education: the on-campus left (students, yes, but more importantly administrators) using the power of investigation and discipline to punish ‘wrongthink.’ The right pushed, too, but those pushes overwhelmingly originated off campus. This makes sense, given that there simply aren’t that many conservatives in the student body, on the faculty, or — least of all — among administrators in higher education. In 2025, what changed was the balance of power and the source of the pressure. The federal government and state governments, using the levers of state power, are now the leading forces behind attempts to punish campus speech.” (12/30/25)
https://thedispatch.com/article/campus-free-speech-threats-left-right-backlash/
- The rise of homonationalism
Source: spiked
by Albie Amankona“Across Europe, gay voters are moving rightwards. Britain has not quite caught up yet, but it will. The only question is whether the Conservatives or Reform UK will be the ones to benefit. I was reminded of this recently, while hosting a fundraiser for LGBT+ Conservatives at the Savile Club in London. Conservative MP Katie Lam was speaking, and she made a remark that would once have been uncontroversial, but now feels borderline taboo. LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage, she argued, are the product of particular cultures. Britain and the West built the legal and cultural framework that made LGBT equality possible. It did not happen by accident.” (12/30/25)
- The Venezuela Escalation Ignores a Long History of U.S. Hypocrisy on Drugs
Source: CounterPunch
by Eric Ross“Every accusation is a confession. This is clearly true of the Trump administration’s insistence that Venezuela operates as a ‘narco-state,’ exporting terrorism to the U.S. via fentanyl, now labeled as a ‘weapon of mass destruction.’ The charge is not only false, given that virtually no fentanyl enters the country from Venezuela, but transparently political and pretextual. This hypocrisy was made unmistakable with Trump’s recent pardon of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in 2024 in a U.S. federal court on drug trafficking charges. … This accusation collapses further when placed in broader historical context. For decades, the most powerful state actors facilitating and protecting narcotics trafficking have not been Washington’s adversaries but Washington itself.” (12/30/25)
- Aargh! Letters of marque would unleash Blackbeard on the cartels
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Michael Vlahos“Just saying the words ‘Letters of Marque’ is to conjure the myth and romance of the pirate: Namely, that species of corsair also known as Blackbeard or Long John Silver, stalking the fabled Spanish Main, memorialized in glorious Technicolor by Robert Newton, hallooing the unwary with ‘Aye, me hearties!’ Perhaps it is no surprise that the legendary patois has been resurrected today in Congress. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has introduced the Cartel Marque and Reprisal Reauthorization Act on the Senate floor, thundering that it ‘will revive this historic practice to defend our shores and seize cartel assets’. If enacted into law, Congress, in accordance with Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, would license private American citizens ‘to employ all reasonably necessary means to seize outside the geographic boundaries of the United States and its territories the person and property of any cartel or conspirator of a cartel or cartel-linked organization.'” (12/29/25)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/letters-of-marque-cartels/
- We Are Going to Win
Source: Liberal Currents
by Adam Gurri“Trump did not begin with as strong a hand for authoritarian consolidation as many thought. Orban, for example, came to power with a tidal wave of popularity, into a unicameral parliamentary system overseeing a unitary government. Trump, by contrast, won narrowly in 2024. … Still, there was no question that he and his people were going to try to consolidate an authoritarian regime, whatever hand they were dealt, the second they were able to take the White House again. And try they have. … But so far, it has been a failure, one that has backfired on them rather than strengthening their position. Trump’s narrow support among the public has vanished.” (12/30/25)
- That Non-Science Stink
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Not long ago we were screamed at: ‘Trust the Science!’ So those of us paying attention came to distrust the scientists. Especially ‘scientists’ in positions of political power. Sadly, tragically, more than one scientific discipline has been perverted in shockingly non-scientific ways. A hidebound denialism about new data has crept in. Sure, it is about the money, but often we catch a whiff of ideology.” (12/30/25)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2025/12/30/that-non-science-stink/
- How Trump Can Push Europe to Secure Ukraine
Source: The American Conservative
by Andrew Day“Both Ukraine and Russia, before making a deal, want some assurance that the other won’t treat peace as a mere pause in fighting and then restart the war at an opportune moment. As always in the high-stakes game of international politics, no leader wants to be a sucker, and every state tends toward paranoia about its security. … There’s a creative way out of this impasse. Moscow has indicated it would permit [sic] Kiev to join the European Union. And the EU has a mutual defense arrangement that would amount to a long-term security guarantee for Ukraine if it joins the Union.” (12/30/25)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/how-trump-can-push-europe-to-secure-ukraine/
- Trump Takes a Step Toward Liberty
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul“President Trump recently signed an executive order changing marijuana’s Controlled Substances Act classification from Schedule I to Schedule III. Schedule I is supposed to include especially dangerous drugs that are likely to be abused and have no medical purpose. Whatever one thinks of the wisdom and morality of using marijuana, the fact is it is less addictive, and quite possibly safer, than alcohol. Many Americans who live in one of the 40 states that have legalized medicinal marijuana use it for a variety of ailments. Reclassifying marijuana does not repeal federal laws criminalizing its use. The reclassifying does, though, facilitate research into marijuana’s medical benefits.” (12/29/25)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/december-29th-2025
- Corporate Media Advances Conservative Narrative About Minnesota Fraud
Source: The American Prospect
by Matthew Cunningham-Cook“On Friday, November 21, as most Americans were prepping for Thanksgiving, President Trump went on a tirade on his Truth Social platform. Egged on by unsubstantiated claims by noted right-wing pugilist Chris Rufo, he posted: ‘Minnesota, under Governor Waltz [sic], is a hub of fraudulent money laundering activity …. Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great State, and BILLIONS of Dollars are missing. Send them back where they came from. It’s OVER!’ … In recent months, there has been ever greater attention paid to a spate of fraudulent activity in Minnesota, with most of those implicated being Somali. (The ringleader of the largest fraud, Feeding Our Future, is a white American, and nearly all of those indicted are naturalized or natural-born American citizens.)” (12/29/25)
- The Fifth Column, episode 538
Source: The Fifth Column
“The Fifth Column.” (12/30/25)
https://www.wethefifth.com/p/not-enough-booze-too-many-files-538
- Rising, 12/30/25
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on Minnesota Governor Tim Walz facing heat over the allegations of widespread fraud in his state.” (12/30/25)
https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/5666506-rising-december-30-2025/
- Reason Interview: Lauren Hall
Source: Reason
“Lauren Hall looks at the roots of political tribalism, why voters feel trapped between false choices, and how radical moderation offers a way out of constant polarization.” (12/30/25)
https://reason.com/podcast/2025/12/30/the-politics-of-permanent-outrage/
- Antiwar News with Dave DeCamp, 12/30/25
Source: Antiwar.com
“Trump To Back Israeli Attack on Iran, Report Claims CIA Conducted Venezuela Drone Strike, and More.” (12/30/25)
- Gracearchy with Jim Babka, episode 148
Source: Gracearchy with Jim Babka
“The Tube That Is Not Yours.” (12/29/25)
https://rumble.com/v73j45g-ep148-the-tube-that-is-not-yours-gracearchy-with-jim-babka.html
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 12/29/25
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Zelensky To Trump: ‘Give Me 50 Year Security Guarantee … And More Money!'” (12/29/25)
https://rumble.com/v73m0k6-zelensky-to-trump-give-me-50-year-security-guarantee…and-more-money.html
- Nonzero, 12/29/25
Source: bloggingheads.tv
“2025: A Year-End (And Quarter-Century-End) Reckoning | Robert Wright & Paul Bloom.” (12/29/25)